Drowning
by charmingcontender
Summary: (She is entranced. He has so many layers that she cannot see to the core of him. He is someone who would take a lifetime to learn.) One thing cuts through her contemplations. "My price . . . is her." She is so startled that she responds without thinking. "Yes." - RUMOURS Universe.


Belle had been told from the time that she was a young girl that her curiosity- her _need_ to know- would be the death of her. ( _She disagrees; she believes it will lead her to something beyond her wildest dreams and, if it doesn't, at least she'll perish for something worthwhile.)_ Belle was a mischievous, inquisitive, observant child, ( _much more observant than she was credited.)_ She is filled with the need to know and catalogue and store away every piece of knowledge she comes across or uncovers ( _has an unquenchable urge to unravel every mystery, complete every challenge, solve every puzzle)._ Much of her behaviour, she knows, is considered inappropriate for a lady of breeding, but Belle has never followed societal norms ( _and she wouldn't now, if her father was not forcing her hand, if she were not already drowning.)_

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By the time she is four years of age, Belle starts picking out words in the books her mother reads to her each night and sneaks pastries from the kitchens while the maids pretend not to notice. ( _She can also predict the pattern of the lives of the people in her town everyday of every week of every month of the year and can make butter.)_ She plays tricks and pulls pranks on the villagers and they laugh and shake their heads.

By the time she is six, she is reading chapter books on her own and playing jump rope with the village children. ( _She can also recite the names of every person in a fifteen mile radius and how they each react to hardship, joy, sorrow, prosperity, and poor weather and she watches a calf being born.)_ Her games are growing with her ( _growing sharper and more subtle as she observes more)_ and the townsfolk tolerate her good naturedly.

As a ninth birthday gift, Belle's parents entrust her with the key to the keep's library and she spends her evening eating sweetcakes with the townspeople. ( _By this time, she understands the social hierarchy and interactions between every person in the town and can predict- almost down to the word- how each villager will respond to different stimuli and situations and has learned about special relations between a man and a woman and all that entails.)_ Her games are words and etiquette and real-life situations and sometimes it makes people uncomfortable, but grins can still be found, if she looks hard enough.

Three months before Belle turns ten, she feels she has nothing new to observe ( _nothing new to sate her curiosity)_ in the town and the lives it contains, so she entrenches herself in the ( _her)_ library for eight hours a day ( _being transported to fabulous places and learning brilliant facts and completing puzzles and analyzing governments and leaders and people)._ Belle stops playing tricks because people stop smiling.

One month after her eleventh name day, her mother dies after she is thrown from a horse. The tragedy pulls Belle from her books for a time and she returns to her ( _real, live)_ people watching, but everyone acts just as she knew they would ( _and they cannot hold her interest)._ She has no desire for pranks at all anymore, even if the people would humour her for the moment.

Two weeks after her mother's passing, Belle retreats even further into the bowels of the ( _her)_ library. ( _She researches death and life and magic and curses and what makes a person good or evil or if there was even such a thing and heroes and villains and kings and queens and sorcereresses and the Dark One and conquerors and tax laws and "what right does one man have to control the choices of another?" )_ She finds books on music and dance and falls in love with the intricacies and the footwork. She loses herself in paper, leather, ink, and dances for one between, around, and over the bookcases.

 _(Her father never comes to pull her out.)_

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When Belle is seventeen, the ogres attack and Belle is bartered away by her father for 1,000 men. ( _"What right does one man have to control the choices of another?")_ She has no say. When she protests she is told to be silent, that this is her duty as a noble's daughter. ( _Is she not noble herself? Could she not aide in other ways? In strategy? In anything more than being a broodmare to a man she doesn't know and who does not talk about anything but this war and her beauty and how he wants heirs?)_ Her father cannot look her in the eyes ( _she wonders if he sees her mother in her or if he is simply ashamed)._

The wedding will not be until after the ogres have been defeated. ( _She says a prayer of thanks to whoever is listening to her screams.)_

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It's been two years and the ogres have not been beaten; in fact, they are winning. The war is not going at all the way her father, her fiancé ( _who treats her like a thing to be had, in the most literal way)_ , and the advisors had hoped. ( _Maybe, if they had listened to some of her ideas, instead of shutting them down because "a woman's place is not in war councils," things would be different.)_ There is no more gold, no more food, and very little hope for a future beyond the winter.She has become the beacon of light for the little duchy, always to be found with a bright ( _pasted-on, cracking)_ smile and a helping hand. She is the solid rock upon which her father, who could not be bothered to come to her rescue, rests his weight. She has become the personification of hope, of the future ( _which is ridiculous, for even if the war is won, her future is forfeit)._ Her father has resorted to drastic measures; the Dark One has been called.

( _"I am drowning. Someone pleasepleaseplease pull me out…")_

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The Dark One appears with a puff of smoke and a snarky statement.

"Well, that was a bit of a let-down."

She cannot be bothered with what is being bargained about after that. ( _Look at him. He is magnificent.)_ The man ( _for most certainly, he is a man)_ is unlike anything she has ever before seen; he does not fit into any category and cannot be labelled. She watches his body language and his hands, takes in his clothing and style, listens to his flair for the dramatic and the tone of his voice, even if she doesn't listen to what he's saying. His voice is abnormally high ( _is it real, affected, some of both? She does not know)_ and has a soft burr hidden behind his over-pronunciated syllables. His eyes are huge, dark amber orbs, almost reptilian, and his skin appears to be scale-like and shimmers golden, bronze, and silver in the firelight. ( _She is entranced. He has so many layers that she cannot see to the core of him. He is someone who would take a lifetime to learn.)_

One thing cuts through her contemplations. "My price . . . is her."

She is so startled that she responds without thinking. "Yes."

Everyone in the room turns to look at her, but she is only concerned with one pair of eyes at the moment- huge, amber ones. He is staring at her with a small, smug smile on his face ( _as if he knew this is exactly what would happen)._

They all start speaking ( _refusing her)_ at once. The Dark One raises his voice and says, a little less flamboyantly, "It's forever, dearie."

( _That throws her. Is this not the wretched creature who steals babies and has people sign their lives away? Is he not said to be evil incarnate? Yet here he is, a man who plays with circumstances and puts on a show and has an air of playfulness in his dealings, belying the sorrow around his mouth and heartache visible in his lower neck and the loneliness audible in every fourteenth syllable. He is giving her a chance to back out. Out where? To Gaston? To her father? Where does she have to go? At least with him, she will have a puzzle to solve.)_

They all stop chattering like magpies and glare at her, silently threatening her to tell him no ( _but she just sees it as a challenge)_. She firms her voice and lets her resolve ( _maybe even a bit of anticipation)_ show in her eyes. "I know. If you will save the lands and people over which my father is lord and defeat the ogres, I will go with you forever."

Her father cuts in with some crude remark about not letting her leave with him- with this beast ( _but you'd send me to bear the other beast's babies, papa?)._ She does not break eye contact with the Dark One ( _should she call him by his name now?)_ , does not answer her father at all. Luckily, she does not need to, for the Dar- Rumpelstiltskin answers instead.

"The deal is struck." He gallantly holds his dragonhide-clad arm out for her, which she takes with poise and a hint of laughter in her eyes ( _which he surely sees for he grins back)._ As they walk toward the double doors of the hall, Rumpelstiltskin turns to her father and the war council with a smirk. "Oh! Congratulations on your little war!"

Then, the world shifts into darkness and she is being pulled through space on the arm of Rumpelstiltskin.

( _Someone has pulled her out. She is no longer drowning.)_


End file.
